


you're like a mirror, reflecting me

by apollothyme



Category: Football RPF
Genre: FIFA World Cup 2014, Footy Ficathon, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-03
Updated: 2014-10-03
Packaged: 2018-02-19 18:03:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2397725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apollothyme/pseuds/apollothyme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mats should have checked who was at his door, because if he had done so he wouldn’t be currently face to face with Benedikt Höwedes waving his cell phone in front of Mats’ face and looking like he’s one step away from punching Mats.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're like a mirror, reflecting me

Mats’ cellphone has been turned off for two weeks and he may or may have not turned off his house phone as well, although that one was an accident. He’d tripped on the cord two months ago and never bothered to plug it back into the wall. It’s not as if he ever uses that phone anyway.

He meant to turn his cellphone back on at first. The battery had run out while he was in the city running errands, his love for Thai takeaway from the restaurant without home delivery but with the seven different types of noodles dragging him into Dortmund's crowded streets. He didn’t have his phone charger with him, because unlike certain people aptly named Marco and Pierre, he wasn't addicted to the small electronic device, and thus he had to go radio silent for a couple of hours.

It was nothing special, nothing permanent, but then he got used to the silence and the feeling of disconnection from the world. Not only was it strangely enticing, it also gave him time. Time to read and to watch all the movies—the good and the terrible—he’d always meant to watch. Time to catch up with all the people he hadn’t seen since Brazil—and oh, wasn’t that word sweet to him now—but since he’d already caught up with his family, everyone else, well, they could wait.

It gave him time to rest and think. Think about the world. About how he wanted his next season to go, if he should move somewhere else or stay in Dortmund. About how he felt awkward around Marco now even though he shouldn’t because Marco is one of his closest friends and things should never be awkward between them. He thought about the World Cup and the things he’d left behind. He thought about getting them back.

He turned on the television and watched a movie about giant robots saving the world instead. He didn’t turn his phone back on.

Somebody knocks on his door on Mats’ sixteenth day of virtual isolation from the world.

In this time, the only trips Mats has taken outside were for takeaway and grocery shopping, although both of those stopped when one too many people recognized him in his dirty Dortmund sweatshirt and old converse shoes. He started ordering whatever he needed online afterwards.

Mats is in the kitchen, trying to figure out if the chicken in his fridge is worth getting out the cookbooks his mother gave him when he moved out of their home, or if he should just slap it on a pan, put some olive oil and garlic all around it and hope for the best. He’s aiming towards the second option at the moment. There’s a new episode of Hannibal coming on in twenty minutes and he has yet to figure out the record option on his remote.

He leaves the chicken on the counter while he goes to open the door.

One thing Mats was taught to do the second he moved out and got his own apartment was to always, _always_ check who was on his front steps before opening the door. There are lots of creeps and obnoxious reporters out there and his home address isn’t that hard to find, so it always pays to be cautious and look.

Excused to say, Mats forgets this rule seventy percent of the time and that day is to no exception. His thoughts are frayed, some still back in the kitchen, others on the television and a couple in Brazil. He’s always thinking about Brazil nowadays, can’t seem to shake off the memories of the heat, the noise and the camaraderie, which are so embedded in him it feels as if he’s still there sometimes.

It’s like a space in his chest has been open and he doesn’t know how to close it or if he even wants to close it.

Mats should have checked who was at his door, because if he had done so he wouldn’t be currently face to face with Benedikt Höwedes waving his cell phone in front of Mats’ face and looking like he’s one step away from punching Mats.

“Oh, so we’re alive now, are we? Because I sure as hell would have said otherwise, what with you not answering any of your phones, your messages or your emails,” Benni is brimming with anger. His eyes are bugged out, the ever-constant pink tint of his cheeks is now a violent red and he looks out of breath, like he’d spent the past ten minutes pacing in front of Mats’ door.

“Sorry, I just kind of…” Mats trails off without finishing. He wasn’t ready for anyone, much less Benni, to show up at his doorstep looking like they want to beat him up and he’s got nothing, no excuses or decent—or even semi-decent—explanations. Benni seems to be waiting for him to say something, though, so Mats scrambles for something to say, “stopped,” is what he says, not at all a real answer, so he quickly adds, “I was about to cook dinner, do you want some?”

Mats doesn’t wait for Benni to answer before he turns around and walks into the kitchen. He doesn’t hear the door close or footsteps trailing after him. For a second, he worries Benni has left, felt offended by Mats’ behavior and walked out, just like that, but if Mats knows him, and he does know him, after all these years, after Brazil, then Benni will—

“What are you cooking?” 

Close the door, quietly, take off his shoes and stand by the kitchen doorway while he watches Mats dab a pan with olive oil. “Chicken. I don’t know if it can be called cooking with my skills, though. It’s more like I’m heating it and hoping nothing blows up and I don’t get salmonella.”

Benni scoffs. “Typical,” he says. Mats looks up and sees him smiling. “Get whatever vegetables you have out and start chopping them. I’m taking over.”

Mats does a fake salute and grins because this—this is easy, this he can do, this rolls off him like breathing and playing football does. He gets the vegetables, two carrots, a tomato and a cucumber out and does as instructed.

They cook side by side in silence, the television in the living room serving as background noise. It’s not playing Hannibal, but some random reality tv show. It doesn’t even occur to Mats that he could go change the channels if he’d like. Catching up on all the shows he’s missed doesn’t seem— _isn’t_ —important anymore.

Twenty minutes pass before Benni asks, “So, you stopped?” and he’s as abrupt as he was before, but he’s softer this time, calmer.

Benni has his eyes on the pan in front of him where their vegetables are being cooked alongside the thin pieces of chicken. Mats nods in response anyway. “I thought I needed time to sort out all my thoughts and get everything in my head in order, but the more I thought and stayed cooped up inside, the more things I discovered I needed--or at least I thought I needed to think about,” Mats admits, even though he’s not the sharing type of person. He only ever does it with a few number of people, Benni being high up on the list. He blames it on Benni’s open smile and how he’s just so _Benni_.

“Did you at least organize part of your thoughts like you wanted to?” Benni asks, making Mats grimace.

“Kinda. I’ve decided I want to stay in Dortmund, at least for another year. After realizing that I found a TV channel showing reruns of _The Simpsons_ and I was distracted from further productive introspection.”

The laugh Benni lets out shakes up the whole room.

“You’re one of a kind, Mats Hummels. I hope you know that well,” Benni says as he stirs their food with a wooden spoon and shakes his head, like he can’t believe what he’s heard. 

Mats remembers then something his brother said to him ages ago, after another one of Mats’ teachers complained about him not paying attention in class. “I think I got stuck in my head and in my own world. Everything else started feeling like noise to me, so I had to turn it down, if that makes sense.”

“It… does, I think, because it’s you. It probably wouldn’t with anyone else,” Mats is not sure what to make of that, but Benni is smiling, so it can’t be bad. “You know you can still call, though, or at least answer a message every now and then. Stop me from getting premature white hairs because one of my best friends has gone completely AWOL without notice and I’m sick with worry. You don’t have to be in your own world alone. You can let me in if you’d like.”

And Mats, he doesn’t know how to reply to that without making himself sound like a grateful fool, which is exactly what he is right now.

“Next time I will, and thank you. That and this--all of this,” Mats waves at Benni and their food and the kitchen, hoping he can encompass everything in that one simple action, “means a lot.”

Benni is silent for a while, enough time passing by that their food is finished cooking and Benni starts to plate it while Mats sets up the dining table. When he finally speaks again they’ve already sat down, and he’s quieter than he’s been all night. “Yeah, I know.”

Mats stares at him, feeling awkward and twenty again, meeting Benedikt for the first time and unsure of what to say or how to act because Benni is older, if only for a year, and he’d already played in the U18 and U19 teams and Mats was just… Mats, as idiotic as that sounds.

In the moment that follows, Mats feels the need to say something to fill in the gaps between them, so he asks, “What about you? What have you been up to?” because it seems harmless enough, something any friend would ask.

Benni looks up at him and the look he gives Mats can only be described as a mix of morose and chiller than the Arctic Pole.

“Have you looked into any of your messages these past two weeks?” he asks.

“No?” Mats says, only it comes out as more of a question than an affirmation.

“Well, maybe you should go do that now.”

Mats slowly gets up, all the while staring at Benni in the hopes his friend will tell he’s joking around and for him to sit down or at least give him an explanation. Instead Benni looks down at his plate and gives it the kind of attention usually reserved for a football. Mats goes to his bedroom.

His phone takes a few minutes to come to alive and Mats spends every second of those wondering what he’s doing and why Benni asked him to do this. He doesn’t come up with any plausible answers. Aliens are on his mind, but that’s because he spent all of last night watching the X-Files.

After he puts in his SIM code, his phone freezes for a second before it starts working again, which is when Mats is bombarded with the notifications of the 84 missed emails, 57 missed texts and 33 missed calls he received the past two weeks.

He skips the emails. They’re probably all from work, either from his agent wanting to discuss Mats’ future or from Kloppo telling him he has new plans to conquer the world and needs Mats to be his spokesperson. Mats and Marco have discussed this at length and both agree Kloppo has a wider view of the world than most football managers. Mats thinks about clicking on the little phone button, but goes for the messages first.

A couple are from his family, one or two from his national teammates and a good amount from his Dortmund ones, and then there is Benni. Mats has over forty messages from Benni alone. He scrolls to the first without looking at the last ones and sinks further into his bed as he reads them.

> > hey, I know you’re probably sick of my face already, but do you want to go out for a cup of coffee?
> 
> > I haven’t heard from you in a while, everything alright? 
> 
> > Mats please just answer, everyone is starting to worry
> 
> > Mats im going to call the cops if you dont answer im serious
> 
> > mats
> 
> > please just answer

And it’s this for two whole weeks until finally,

> > i’m coming over.

Mats clicks on the phone button. He’s not surprised when he sees that over half the calls are from Benni, but he’s not ready either when he finally manages to enter his voicemail code, after his thumb slipping twice, and the first message starts playing. He manages to get through three of the seven voicemails before he has to stop listening, the feeling of dread that’s washed over him making him stop.

He stumbles his way into the living room, bumping into a table and the couch in the process and not registering either. He says, “I’m sorry,” because he doesn’t know what else to say, because there’s nothing else he can say.

Benni nods like he was expecting that answer. He’s still looking down at his plate. 

Mats sits down in his seat and keeps staring at Benni. The space between them feels too big all of a sudden, the dining table an endless wall separating them and Mats doesn’t know how to fix this, doesn’t know how to say, _I do this sometimes, just leave to be on my own. I thought you knew and were okay with it. I thought you didn’t care._

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, with more conviction this time. He doesn’t know how to make this right, but he knows that he has to. “And don’t tell me it’s okay, because I know it’s not. I was an asshole.”

“You were,” Benni stabs a piece of chicken with rather more force than he needs to.

“And I shouldn’t have disappeared like that.”

“You shouldn’t,” a slice of tomato gets the same treatment as the chicken.

“And I probably shouldn’t do this next either, but I might as well go all out now,” Mats says, finally getting Benni to look up, before he gets up and walks around the table to do something he’s been wanting to do for five years.

He pulls Benni up by the fabric of his shirt and then he leans in, close enough that his actions can’t be mistaken for anything but what they are. He gives Benni time to push him off, to tell him he’s the only lonely, desperate one there and Benni is fine. Benni isn’t like that. Benni only messaged him two days after coming back to Germany asking to go out for a cup of coffee, despite the fact that they practically lived in each other’s pockets while in Brazil, because he’s a good friend and nothing else.

Benni pulls him closer instead, and when they kiss, they meet each other halfway there.


End file.
